July 1914 (1) Creating The Perfect Storm

Although the smouldering distrust and racially inflamed tensions that continually raised the political temperature in the Balkans were very deliberately reignited by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the spark failed to catch fire immediately. Civilised Europe was certainly stunned by the double murder. His uncle, the elderly Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, went into shock.

Austria-Hungary was outraged, and there were anti-Serbian riots in Sarajevo and Mostar, [1] but it required weeks of careful planning and considered judgement on the part of the Secret Elite to fan the understandable outrage and bring about the great European war for which they had planned since before 1905. Furthermore, it required the highest level of diplomatic skill and political nous, allied to press connivance, unseen sleights of hand and downright lies to achieve the ultimate goal of war with Germany. War apparently started by Germany; war that would once and for all crush Germany and re-affirm the pre-eminence of the British race.

On 1 July, 1914, war was not inevitable. Far from it. The assassination in itself presented no cause for a world war. Political murders were not uncommon in these troubled parts, with royalty, prime ministers, political opponents and religious leaders all victims to the gunman in the recent past. [2] This was different. The Secret Elite deliberately and systematically whipped the consequences of Sarajevo into a raging wildfire that could not be extinguished. From the hub of the Foreign Office in July 1914, Sir Edward Grey and his ambassadorial guard abused their position in order to trick Austria-Hungary and Germany, into a European war. A diplomatic network of highly experienced ambassadors committed to the Secret Elite vision of the pre-eminence of the British race was in place throughout the European capitals: Sir George Buchanan in St Petersburg, Sir Maurice de Bunsen in Vienna, Sir Edward Goschen in Berlin and Sir Francis Bertie in Paris. Each was entrusted with the task of manipulating the Balkan crisis into a war that would see the Anglo-centric influence dominate the world.

Highly confidential information and instruction passed to and fro between the British embassies and legations and the Foreign Office, where Sir Eyre Crowe and Sir Arthur Nicolson headed Grey’s personal praetorian guard. Even where the major players appeared to be Russian (Sazonov and Isvolsky) or French (Poincaré and Maurice Paléologue, the French Ambassador at St Petersburg in 1914), their actions were sanctioned from London. The last days of June and the first week of July were, on the surface, comparatively calm. An outpouring of sympathy for Austria and its old monarchy followed the initial shock of the assassination. In a parliamentary address on 30 June, Prime Minister Asquith stated that Emperor Franz Joseph ‘and his people have always been our friends’. He spoke of the ‘abhorrence of the crime and the profound sympathy of the British Parliament’. [3] In France, President Poincaré expressed his ‘sincere condolences’. [4] Profound sincerity did not last long.

Despite the archduke’s high office and his position and rank as heir apparent, his funeral was decidedly low-key. The Austrian foreign minister, Count Leopold Berchtold, allegedly wanted it that way. Kaiser Wilhelm II definitely intended to go. Franz Ferdinand had been a close personal friend, and it was his duty to show public respect to the ageing emperor. [5] The kaiser, however, developed diplomatic lumbago when it was rumoured that a dozen Serbian assassins were making their way to Vienna to kill him. [6] Prince Arthur of Connaught was the designated representative for King George V, but quite suddenly, on 2 July, he and all other members of European royalty cancelled. Every one. Fears were expressed that other assassins were ready to do away with any passing royalty. No collection of funereal crowned heads gathered in Vienna. But the insult to Austria threatened their national pride. It was a crime too far crying out for justice. And most of Europe appeared to understand this.

Yet Serbia, the nation with most to fear in terms of retribution, continued to goad Austria and made little pretence of being contrite. Why? Why did the Serbs continue to aggravate the situation, unless of course they, and others, were determined to provoke a reaction? The Times correspondent reported on 1 July that newspapers in Belgrade were claiming that the assassination was a consequence of the bad old Austrian police system and a lack of real liberty in Austria. The Russian press was equally aggressive. They placed the responsibility for Serb agitation on those who, ‘like Franz Ferdinand’, sowed discord between Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs.. If the powers that controlled Serbia, both internally and from St Petersburg, had wanted to caution restraint, then this provocation would never have been tolerated. But the assassination had not been meticulously planned as some singular act of defiance. The flames were not to be doused. Russia and Serbia alone took an aggressive stance.

In Britain the Westminster Gazette, owned by Waldorf Astor from the Secret Elite ’s inner-circle, [7] stated that ‘Austria cannot be expected to remain inactive’. [8] The Manchester Guardian, always influential in Liberal circles, declared that Serbia’s record was unmatched as a tissue of cruelty, greed, hypocrisy and ill faith. ‘If it were physically possible for Serbia to be towed out to sea and sunk there, the air of Europe would at once seem clearer.’ [9] It could hardly have made its position more obvious. With one exception, The Times, all English newspapers recognised that Austria had suffered intense provocation and acknowledged her right to take the strongest measures to secure the punishment of those concerned. The weekly paper John Bull, which had a wide readership among the working classes, was equally adamant that Austria’s position was ‘just’. [10] Small wonder, then, that Berchtold believed that he had the understanding and sympathy of the British government.

The British public were consumed by its own immediate crisis. Though it is not absolutely true to say that they had their heads turned exclusively elsewhere, the overwhelming newspaper interest centred on Irish Home Rule, gun running and the Ulster Volunteers. All of these threatened a civil war. [11] Day by day, week by week, the Loyalists in Ulster and the Home-Rulers in the southern counties captured the headlines and raised the horrendous spectre of a civil war that would spill over onto mainland Britain. How convenient, then, that for most of the month of July home affairs dominated learned debate, while Sir Edward Grey and the Foreign Office went about their business in almost monastic silence, unburdened by the need to keep the Cabinet or Parliament informed of the developing crisis in Europe.

Austria was determined to deal with Serbia as an act of self-preservation, [12] but it would have been impractical to attempt this without the approval of her great ally, Germany. A letter from Emperor Franz Joseph was delivered to the kaiser at Potsdam on 5 July, underlining Austria’s desire to take definitive action. After discussing the representations from Vienna with his advisors, Kaiser Wilhelm gave his unqualified approval, the so called German ‘blank cheque’. This was later misrepresented as a binding promise to give Austria military support against Serbia in order to bring about a European-wide war. It was nothing of the sort. Certainly the kaiser encouraged Austria to take whatever action she believed necessary to put Serbia in its place, [13] but few in Germany believed that Russian military intervention in a localised dispute was a realistic possibility. Russia had no defence treaty with Serbia, and Austria had no intention whatsoever of using force against Russia. It was inconceivable to the kaiser that the czar would actively support the ‘regicides’ in Serbia. [14]

One of the most deliberate historical misrepresentations of the twentieth century took root in that Potsdam meeting. A great lie was concocted by the Secret Elite that, before going on his scheduled sailing holiday, the kaiser convened a crown council meeting at Potsdam on 5 July and revealed his determination to make war on an unsuspecting Europe. [15] The myth holds that he was advised to wait a fortnight in order to give German bankers time to sell off their foreign securities. [16] Such blatant fabrication has since been unmasked as part of the orchestrated propaganda constructed to ‘prove ’ that Germany intimidated Austria into attacking Serbia in order to draw Russia into the conflict. [17] In the years immediately after the war, the deliberate lie that the kaiser was the instigator of war passed into accepted history as ‘truth’. Children learn in school, and students repeat in examinations, that war was the kaiser’s doing. In fact, the only signal he transmitted back to Vienna was that, whatever Austria decided, Germany would stand by her as a friend and ally.

Reassured by support from across Europe, Berchtold came to the logical conclusion that he was expected to punish Serbia for the crime of Sarajevo. Other governments, even the entente governments, appeared to approve the need for retribution. [18] Indeed, the Austro-Hungarian ministerial council was concerned that if they did not take strong action, their own Slav and Romanian subjects would interpret it as weakness. [19] They agreed to make stringent demands on Serbia. Nothing else would stop their vicious intrigues. The die was cast, but few in Britain knew that the dice were even rolling.

[1] The Times 1 July 1914.
[2] King George I of Greece was assassinated in 1913; Mahmud Sevket Pasha, prime minister of Turkey in 1913; José Canalejas, prime minister of Spain in 1912; Prime Minister Stolypin in Russia in 1911; Grand Duke Alexandrovitch Romanov in 1911. Many survived attempted assassination, including Prince Albert Edward in 1900, Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1900 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.
[3] Prime Minister Herbert Asquith in Hansard, House of Commons, Debate, 30 June 1914, vol. 64, cc214–6.
[4] Imanuel Geiss, July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War: Selected
Documents, p. 55.
[5] Ibid., p. 63.
[6] Sidney B. Fay, Origins of the World War, vol. II, p. 205.
[7] Carroll Quigley, Anglo-American Establishment, p. 12.
[8] Fay, Origins of the World War, vol. II, p. 332.
[9] Irene Cooper Willis, England’s Holy War, p. 59.
[10] Ibid., p. 25.
[11] Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes, p. 435.
[12] Count Leopold Berchtold, ‘Austria’s Challenge Justified by Serbian Menace’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol. 28 (1928), p. 626.
[13] Geiss, July 1914, p. 71.
[14] Ibid., p. 72.
[15] Harry Elmer Barnes, In Quest of Truth and Justice, p. 52.
[16] Fay, Origins of the World War, vol. II, p. 175.
[17] Harry Elmer Barnes, Genesis of the World War, p. 241.
[18] ‘Origin of the World War: Minutes of a Historic Council’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol. 11, (1919), pp. 455–60.
[19] Geiss, July 1914, pp. 80–7.

The Assassination Of Franz Ferdinand (4): The Smoking Gun

The mortal remains of Sophie and Ferdinand were interred at Artstetten castle on 4 July. Nine days later Dr Friedrich von Wiesner, the Chief Austrian investigator, forwarded an interim report to Vienna containing three major points. Firstly, the Greater Serbia movement aimed to sever the Southern Slav region from Austria by revolutionary violence. He pointed an accusatory finger at the Serbian nationalist group Narodna Odbrana, stating that the Belgrade government had made no attempt to curb its activities. Secondly, von Wiesner unmasked Major Tankosić and ‘the Serbian official Ciganovic’ as the men responsible for training and supplying the assassins with weapons, and both the frontier authorities and the customs officers for smuggling them into Bosnia. These facts he deemed ‘demonstrable and virtually unassailable’. [1] He concluded by stating cautiously, that there was no conclusive proof at that time, that the Serbian Government had any knowledge of the assassination or had co-operated in preparing it. [2]

Dr von Wiesner’s oral report, delivered some two days later, was more comprehensive and came to a momentous conclusion. The Serbian government had known everything about the assassination. He had unearthed more evidence of Serbian complicity, but his telegrammed report of 13 July was destined to be hijacked and later grossly misrepresented by the American delegation at the War Guilt Commission in 1919. Their two most senior delegates, Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Counsellor James Scott Brown, deliberately chose a 31-word extract from Von Wiesner’s brief report which they claimed ‘proved’ that Austria had no evidence of Serbian involvement [3] Such deliberate falsification suited their cause. It was used as part of the post-war onslaught against Germany and Austria to lay the blame for the world war entirely on their shoulders. Lansing and Brown stand accused of deliberately falsifying history in order to malign the Austrian and German governments.

By October, when the Young Bosnians were brought to trial the Austrian authorities had overwhelming evidence of Serbian complicity. Despite this, the conspirators insisted in deflecting blame from Serbia. Under cross-examination, Princip was defiant: ‘I believe in unification of all South Slavs in whatever form of state and that it be free of Austria.’ Asked how he intended to realize his goal he responded: ‘By means of terror.’ [4] Although they had been trained in Serbia, the Young Bosnians had no knowledge of the influences that dictated policy further up the chain of command. Indeed, few if any within that chain knew who was empowering the next link. Princip and his group genuinely believed that they were striking a blow for freedom and emancipation and could not bring themselves to accept that they had been duped into literally firing someone else’s bullets.

The Austrian court did not accept their attempts to hold Serbia blameless. [5] The verdict was decisive, with the court correctly finding that the military commanders in charge of the Serbian espionage service collaborated in the outrage. Four of the assassination team were executed by hanging in February 1915, but the younger members, like Princip, were given prison sentences. He died in prison in 1918 from tuberculosis exacerbated by a botched amputation. Crucially, the trail of culpability had not been covered over.

Above all else, the Secret Elites had to ensure that no links could be traced from Serbia to Russia. Russian complicity in the Archduke’s death would have altered the balance of credibility for the Entente cause. All links to Sazonov in particular had to be airbrushed. That in turn meant that the web of intrigue between Serbia and Russia be cleansed. The outbreak of war in August slowed down this process, but only delayed the outcome.

Nicholai Hartwig, Russian ambassador to Serbia, died in Belgrade in very strange circumstances. On a visit to the Austrian ambassador, Baron von Giesel, on 10 July1914, Hartwig collapsed, allegedly from a massive ‘heart attack’. The Serbian press immediately published inflammatory articles accusing the Austrians of poisoning Hartwig while he was a guest at their legation. The Austrians, of course, knew from decoded diplomatic telegrams, that Hartwig was at the centre of intrigues against Austria-Hungary. [6] Was this an old-fashioned Roman-style act of retribution or, were the Secret Elite simply very fortunate that a fifty-seven year old diplomat dropped dead in the Austrian legation barely two weeks after the assassination in which he was complicit?

Denials echoed around Europe, no-where more vehemently than in Britain, where the Secret Elite had to vilify any suggestion that Russia was involved with internal Bosnian or Austro-Hungarian politics. The Times led the outcry;

‘The latest suggestion made in one of the Serbian newspapers is that M de Hartwig’s sudden death in the Austro-Hungarian Legation at Belgrade the other day was due to poison. Ravings of that kind move the contempt as well as the disgust of cultivated people, whatever their political sympathies may be.’ [7]

Ravings indeed. The Times, and those it represented, clearly wanted to squash such speculation. It was far too close to the truth. If the idea that Hartwig had been murdered because he was involved in the Archduke’s assassination gained credence, British public opinion would turn even sourer against Russia. At the request of the Serbian Government, Hartwig was buried in Belgrade in what was virtually a State funeral. Every notable Serbian, including the Prime Minister, attended. Officially Hartwig suffered death by natural causes. Unofficially, a very important link in the chain of culpability was buried along with his corpse.

Some three years later, with the tide of war turned violently against Serbia, Colonel Apis and the officers loyal to him were arrested. At a Serbian Court Martial held on the frontier at Salonika on 23 May 1917, Apis and eight of his associates were indicted on various trumped up charges, unrelated to Sarajevo, and sentenced to death, Two others were sentenced to 15 years in prison. The Serbian High Court reduced the number of death sentences to seven and King Alexander commuted another four, leaving Apis and two others to face the firing squad. [8]

Colonel Apis effectively signed his own death warrant when he confessed to the Salonika court that he had enlisted men to carry out the assassination. ‘In agreement with Artamanov, the Russian military attaché, I hired Malobabic to organise Ferdinand’s murder upon his arrival in Sarajevo.’ [9] The explosive part of that statement was the opening phrase ‘in agreement with Artamanov’. His revelation of Russian involvement had to be silenced. Much to his own surprise, for Colonel Apis truly believed, right up to the moment of death that his contacts in England, France and Russia would intervene on his behalf, he was executed on 26 June 1917 by firing squad. [10] In reality, Apis was silenced; put to death by order of those who desperately needed to permanently bury the complicity of Russia in the Sarajevo assassination. [11] It was judicial murder.

By one means or another, the lower levels of the web of culpability were blown away. The Young Bosnians had in their naivety been willing sacrifices to a cause they never knew existed. Hartwig was dead. Murdered? Probably, but all that really mattered was that his voice would never be heard again. Our understanding of his role in managing the Russian intrigues has to remain, at best, incomplete. There was plenty to hide, and no doubt at all about Russian complicity. [12] The Soviet collection of diplomatic papers from the year 1914 revealed an astonishing gap.During the first days of the October Revolution in 1917, Hartwig’s dispatches from Belgrade for the crucial period between May and July, 1914 were removed by an unknown person from the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Three years dead and his was a voice they still had to gag. [13] Finally, Apis and his Black Hand associates were removed from any future enquiry or the temptation of a lucrative memoir. Blown away; all of them, in the expectation that the truth about their direct involvement would disappear in the confusion of war.

And yet the world has been asked to believe that the murder of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand was carried out by a bunch of lucky amateurs who inadvertently set the world ablaze. What nonsense. Having failed to entice the Austrians and their German allies into an angry indiscretion over the Balkan wars, the Secret Elite laid a most devious trap, which also might well have come to nothing unless deceit had not been taken to an unprecedented level. Court historians have deliberately misrepresented the complex events of July 1914 and perpetuated the myth that after Sarajevo, world war was inevitable. Their stance is based on claims that the opposing Alliance systems, secret treaties and acceleration of armaments production in Europe were destined to end in war. The Kaiser, in their view, lusted for world domination, misled his people and deliberately used the Archduke’s assassination as an excuse to drag Europe into ‘Armageddon’.

These incredible concoctions gained credence over the twentieth century through deliberately falsified histories and received learning. Whoever challenged them was deemed to be a ‘revisionist’ or a ‘conspiracy-theorist’ and sometimes even a traitor. An official cloak of confusion was woven through the manipulations and misrepresentations presented as ‘evidence’ at Versailles in 1919, to deliberately and unfairly lay blame on the Kaiser and Germany. When that cloak is stripped away it is patently clear that it was not Germany that wanted war, or forced war on Europe in 1914. That particular infamy belongs to the Secret Elite in London.

[1] Friedrich von Wiesner, ‘Austria’s Life and Death Struggle Against Irredentism’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol. 28 (1928), issue 4, p.632.
[2] Austrian Red Book No 17 quoted in Sidney B Fay, The Origins of the World War, vol.1., pp.6-7.
[3] von Wiesner, ‘Austria’s Life and Death Struggle Against Irredentism’, p.632.
[4] Harry Elmer Barnes, ‘Germany Not Responsible for Austria’s Actions’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol. 28 (1928), issue 4, p.622.
[5] W.A. Dolph Owings, The Sarajevo Trial, Part 1, pp.527–30.
[6] Barnes, ‘Germany Not Responsible for Austria’s Actions’, p.620.
[7] The Times, 16 July 1914.
[8] David MacKenzie, Apis, The Congenial Conspirator, pp.329 and 344–7.
[9] Ibid., pp.129-130.
[10] Vladimir Dedijer, Road to Sarajevo, pp.398–400.
[11] Harry Elmer Barnes, Genesis of the World War, p.731.
[12] Victor Serge, ‘La Verité sur l’Attentat de Sarajevo’, in Clarte, no. 74, 1 May 1924.
[13] Dedijer, Road to Sarajevo, p.513.

The Assassination Of Franz Ferdinand (3): Firing The Bullets

Archduke Ferdinand need not have been killed. Warnings about the perilous nature of his safety abounded. Despite this, the Governor of Bosnia, the Austrian General Potiorek, was determined that the visit would go ahead. Desperate pleas from the Chief of Police, who believed that the Archduke was in grave danger, were ignored. The very date of the visit, 28 June was particularly provocative. It was St Vitus Day, historically and emotionally significant to the Serbs, the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo Poyle, (1389) the victory that unified the Serbian nation against the Turkish invader.

That alone should have been a warning. The Police chief’s fears were dismissed by the Governor and he was ridiculed by Sarajevo’s military committee when he requested a cordon of soldiers to line the streets as a precaution. He pleaded with them not to publish the route of the Archduke’s cavalcade through the city, but to no avail. Newspapers carried detailed notices of times and places to view the Archduke’s processional visit. [1] A request that additional police officers be brought in from the country was rejected because it would cost too much. Security measures were left in the hands of providence.

The conspirators, and there were seven in the Young Bosnian team, stood at intervals along the avenue called Appel Quay – or the avenue of Assassins as the Archbishop of Sarajevo would later dub it – and mingled freely with the crowds for an hour and a half before the Archduke’s arrival. Though Bosnia could boast a first-class political intelligence, no-one, no police officer, no undercover police agent, no vigilant citizen questioned them. [2]

The events of what might safely be deemed the world’s most devastating assassination have been well documented. A botched bomb-throwing left the Archduke shaken and stirred, but physically unmarked. Officials in the following car were not so lucky. His cavalcade stopped briefly before continuing to the Town Hall. Strained speeches made pretence that all was well. Despite the shameful outrage, troops were not called in from the barracks, nor additional police summoned for protection. Franz Ferdinand demanded to go to the hospital to see for himself how one of the governor’s assistants, wounded by the bomb-blast, was faring. [3] Incredibly, the cavalcade returned along the same ‘Avenue of Assassins’, from where the first bomb had been thrown, but turned into the wrong street. Potiorek ordered the driver to stop and reverse. In doing so, he placed the Archduke directly in front of young Princip who promptly shot both him and his unfortunate wife, Sophie. The police arrested Princip on the spot before he could use his cyanide.

The assassination succeeded, despite the amateurism of the conspirators, because the victim was more or less served up on a plate.  Governor Potiorek’s behaviour was astonishing. The car was on its way to the hospital (Franz Ferdinand had insisted on going there to see an assistant wounded in the bomb throwing) but Potiorek, with the  Archduke and  his wife now both badly wounded, ordered the driver to proceed to the Governor’s residence instead. Confused? We should be. Had Potiorek acted in shock, or did he know it was already too late? It was suggested at the time that Austria had set up the assassination deliberately in order to provoke a war. In the bitter rage of accusation and counter-claim that followed after 1914, all sides made allegations against each other. In the 1920s, and over the decades since, much evidence has come to light from documents that had been ‘lost’ or removed ‘unofficially’. There is now a huge body of diplomatic evidence that links Russia and Serbia to the assassination, [4] but none that supports the suggestion that the low-security visit of Archduke Ferdinand to Sarajevo was in some way organised with the intention of exposing him to the risk of assassination. Had the great crime gone to plan, all of the Young Bosnians should have committed suicide. They were expendable. Dead Bosnians tell no tales. The links in the chain of responsibility would have been broken. That was supposedly why the assassins had been supplied with the cyanide phials. The headline they sought was of a noble death-pact assassination which would leave the authorities completely bewildered, and the coffee-houses of Europe abuzz with revolutionary admiration. Cabrinovic, who threw the first bomb, immediately took the cyanide pill and leapt fifteen feet into the shallow River Miljacka. Police officers hauled him out of the mud-flat, vomiting uncontrollably. Arrested immediately after the shooting, Princip had no opportunity to swallow the cyanide.

The cyanide failed to be effective for any of the Young Bosnians. There was to be no self-directed mass martyrdom.  But what if the vials had been deliberately formulated with a dose of cyanide that was insufficient to kill?   In his book, Lord Milner’s Second War, John Cafferky poses the pertinent question; did Apis and the Serbian government want them taken alive so that they could be questioned by the authorities and the link with Serbia proved?  The whole point of the exercise, after all, was to provoke Austria into a war with Serbia.  [5]

With suspicious simplicity, the Austro-Hungarian authorities arrested and prosecuted all but one of the Sarajevo assassins, together with the agents and peasants who assisted them on their way. How they managed to track all of the alleged conspirators so quickly begs the question about how much they knew in advance. The major charge against the Young Bosnians was conspiracy to commit high treason which carried a maximum sentence of death. Within a few days of the assassination, the Austrians had set up a judicial investigation. They were convinced that the Young Bosnians had been equipped from Belgrade and that the plot had originated from there. What the Austrians wanted to know was the extent to which the Serbian government was directly involved. [6] The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry sent its top legal counsellor, Dr von Wiesner, to Sarajevo to investigate the crime.

[1] David James Smith, One Morning in Sarajevo: 28 June 1914, p.166.
[2] Vladimir Dedijer, Road to Sarajevo, pp.317–19.
[3] Smith, One Morning in Sarajevo, p.193.
[4] Alexander, Count Hoyos, ‘Russia Chief Culprit in Precipitation of World War’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol.28 (1928), p.628.
[5] John Cafferky, Lord Milner’s Second War, pp.193-208.
[6] Friedrich von Wiesner, ‘Austria’s Life and Death Struggle Against Irredentism’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol.28 (1928), pp.630–3.

The Assassination Of Franz Ferdinand (2): Making The Bullets

Colonel Apis’s organisation had infiltrated Mlada Bosna, the Young Bosnians, a revolutionary group whom they equipped and trained to carry out the Sarajevo Assassination. These young men were far more intellectual than the narrow chauvinistic Black Hand. They wanted to go beyond independence from Austria-Hungary, to change the primitive nature of Bosnian society. They challenged the authority of existing institutions of state, church, school and family and believed in socialist concepts; egalitarianism and emancipation of women. Young Bosnians stood for modernism, intellectualism and a brave new world. [1] They were spurred by revolution, not narrow nationalism, and under different circumstances would have been swept aside by Black Hand aficionados.

Apis knew just the man to organise and lead the assassination team, Danilo Ilić. He had worked as a school teacher and as a bank worker, but in 1913 and 1914 he lived with his mother, who operated a small boarding house in Sarajevo. Ilić was leader of the Serbian Black Hand terrorist cell in Sarajevo, and as such was known to Colonel Apis personally. He provided the perfect link between the two organisations. [2] Ilić was also a close friend of Gavrilo Princip, the student destined to fire the fatal shot.

Apis used three trusted Serb associates in planning the assassination. His right hand man, Major Tankosić, was in charge of guerrilla training, and brought the would-be assassins to a secret location in Serbia where his specific role was to ensure that the Young Bosnians knew how to handle guns and bombs effectively. He was tasked to teach them the art of the assassin and get them back over the border and into Sarajevo safely. The second, Rade Malobabić was the chief undercover operative for Serbian Military Intelligence. His name appeared in Serbian documents captured by Austria-Hungary during the war which describe the running of arms, munitions, and agents from Serbia into Austria-Hungary under his direction. [3] His assessment was that the Young Bosnians were capable of the task. The third Black Hand conspirator was Milan Ciganovic. He supplied the assassination team with four revolvers and six bombs from the Serbian army’s arsenal. Crucially, each was given a vial of cyanide to take after they had murdered the Archduke. Their suicides would ensure that the trail could not be traced back to Apis and Hartwig.

Ciganovic played an equally important dual role. He was a trusted confidant of the Serbian Prime Minister, Pasic, and was ultimately protected by him from the volcanic fall-out after Sarajevo. Critically, Ciganovic’s involvement meant that members of the Serbian government knew in advance about the proposed assassination. [4] and had time to consider the consequences. Yet in spite of this guilty knowledge, Pasic took no steps to arrest the conspirators or warn Austrian authorities of the impending disaster. [5]

Hartwig was the conduit to Sazonov and Isvolsky for updates on the conspirators. Through them, the Secret Elite were advised of the progress of their plans. Everything appeared to be running smoothly, but Serbian intrigues hit political turbulence at precisely the wrong moment. The unity of Serbia’s political, military and royal leaders, nestling behind the muscle of their Russian minders, had been a feature of Serbian success in the Balkan Wars. Prime Minister Pasic, Colonel Apis and Prince Alexander were all supported by Ambassador Hartwig towards the ambitions of a Greater Serbia. But suddenly, just days before the planned assassination, a power struggle erupted for control of the country. Apis attempted to organise a coup to dismiss Pasic, allegedly over a minor detail of precedence, but found that his power-base in the Serbian military had shrunk.

But the killer blow to Colonel Apis’s aspirations came from two external powers. Russia, more accurately the Sazonov/Isvolsky axis, would not countenance the removal of Prime Minister Pasic and his cabinet. Hartwig slapped down any notion of resignations. At the same time the French president, Poincare let it be known that a Serbian Opposition regime could not count on financial backing from Paris. [6] The King, caught between old loyalties and Russian pressure, withdrew from political life. He transferred his powers to Prince Alexander, a man who resented Apis’s authority in Serbian military circles.

Look again at these events. With the assassination just days away, the last thing that Sazonov, Isvolsky, Poincare and their Secret Elite masters in London would have entertained in June 1914 was a change of government in Serbia that did not owe its very existence to their power and money. Apis, the ultra-nationalist, was not a man to take orders. He had desperately wanted to attack Bulgaria in 1913, but Pasic (no doubt under instructions form Hartwig) had refused to sanction the order. [7] He was neither deferential to Prince Alexander, nor under Hartwig’s thumb. He knew that Pasic was weak and subservient to Russia. It was as if metaphoric scales had suddenly dropped from his eyes, and he understood for the first time that the Russians were exploiting him and his beloved Serbia for their own purposes.

Apis may also have had second thoughts based on his own prospects for survival. He had clearly shaken the ruling cabal in Serbia. Prime Minister Pasic knew about the intended assassination, and in consequence, the Cabinet had closed the borders to known or suspected assassins. Was this self-preservation on their part, an attempt to make it look like the Serbian government had nothing to do with the shooting? Hartwig too knew details of the plans, but never imagined they could be traced back to him. Crucially he did not know that the Austrians were well aware of his intrigues because they had possession of decoded Diplomatic correspondence between Russia and Serbia. [8]

Colonel Apis made a desperate attempt to regain control of events. He ordered a trusted agent to go to Sarajevo and instruct the Young Bosnians to abort the assassination. [Vladimir Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo, p.309 ] It was all too late. Having slipped out of Belgrade on May 28th and been secretly routed across the border by sympathetic frontier guards they were safely ensconced in Sarajevo ready for the appointed day and ill-disposed to accept any postponement. Ciganovic had ensured they had weapons and cash. The senior officer on the border guard at the time, a member of Black Hand, had been placed there on special assignment to see them safely across.

The bullets were safely in the chamber.

[1] Vladimir Dedijer, Road to Sarajevo, p.175.
[2] Luigi Albertini, Origins of the War of 1914, vol.II, pp.27–28, and 79.
[3] Dedijer, Road to Sarajevo, pp.388–9.
[4] Albertini,Origins of the War of 1914, vol.II, pp.282–3.
[5] Fay, Origins of the World War, vol.I, p.27.
[6] MacKenzie, Apis, p.120.
[7] Dedijer, Road to Sarajevo, p.385.
[8] Barnes, ‘Germany Not Responsible for Austria’s Actions’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol.28 (1928), issue 4, p.620.

The Assassination Of Franz Ferdinand (1): The Web Of Intrigue

Let one historic myth be put immediately to the sword. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 did not start the First World War. Of itself, the fateful slaying of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown was a great crime that did indeed cry out for vengeance, but the hand that pulled the trigger had no knowledge of what lay behind the assistance his band of brothers had been given, or how the act would be misrepresented and manipulated into a universal disaster. Assassinations and politically motivated slayings were not uncommon in that troubled time, with Kings and Queens, aristocracy, political opponents and religious leaders falling victims to usurpers, murderers and zealots with astonishing regularity. It was an age of assassins. What made the death of Archduke Ferdinand different from any other was that the event was assisted by the secret cabal in London, well removed from the heat of the Balkans.

The men who comprised the Secret Elite had previously failed to find their spark for the international conflagration through the Balkan wars of 1912-13 because Germany, in the person of the Kaiser, restrained Austria-Hungary from over-reacting to Serbia’s repeated and deliberate provocation. Indeed, the Dual Monarchy was concerned that the German Ambassador in Belgrade in 1914 was decidedly pro-Serb, and had influenced the Kaiser to take a comparatively benign attitude towards the Serbian cause. [1] Yet it was clear that Austria was the weak link in Germany’s protective armour. She could only absorb so much pressure from antagonistic Serbia before the integrity of the Austria- Hungarian state was destroyed. [2]

The war-makers required an incident so violent, threatening or dangerous that Austria would be pushed over the brink. But the assassination itself failed to do so. The world was shocked, stunned and in many parts saddened by the Archduke’s death, but no one talked of war in June 1914. Immediate blame was pointed at the pan-Serb movement, though the implication of revolutionary elements from Bosnia-Herzegovina was not ruled out. The Serbian minister in Vienna denounced the assassination as ‘a mad act of fanatical and political agitators’ [3] as if to suggest that it had been a dastardly and ill-timed mischance.

It was not. In fact the process of bringing about the assassination had been exceptionally well constructed. Austria-Hungary was aware of the external dangers that lay across the Serbian border. Its military intelligence had intercepted and deciphered a large number of diplomatic telegrams that detailed Russian involvement with several activist groups. [4] They knew that the Russian Ambassador in Belgrade, Nicolai Hartwig, was manipulating the Serbian Government to destabilise the region. They knew that Hartwig was in control of the internal politics of Serbia. They knew of his links back to the Russian foreign minister Sazonov in St Petersburg, and to the Paris-based warmongers, Isvolsky and Poincare, but like everyone else, they were not aware of the real power centred in London. No-one was.

The Secret Elite in London funded and supported both the Russian Ambassador in Paris and the French prime minister himself. They influenced the Russian foreign minister in St Petersburg, but kept a very low profile in such matters. Their work had to be undertaken in great secrecy. The links in the chain of command from London went further, deeper and more sinister when extended from Hartwig into the Serbian military, their intelligence service, and the quasi-independent nationalist society, Black Hand. And deeper yet, into the young Bosnian political activists who were willing to pull the trigger in Sarajevo – students whose ideas on socialism and reform were influenced by revolutionaries like Trotsky. As each level in the web of culpability extended away from the main Secret Elite chain of command, precise control became less immediate. Sazonov in St Petersburg considered that Hartwig in Belgrade was ‘carried away occasionally by his Slavophile sympathies’ [5] but did nothing to curtail him. [6] Hartwig in turn supported and encouraged men whose prime cause he willingly shared and whose actions he could personally approve, but not at every stage, control.

Nicolai Hartwig the Russian Ambassador worked in close contact with his Military Attaché, Artamanov, who had been posted to Belgrade to advise and liaise with the Serbian Army. These men were intrinsically linked to the assassinations in Sarajevo by their chosen agent, the founder and dominating figure in the Serbian Black Hand, and the most influential military officer in Serbia, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrjievic or Apis. [7] The English traveller and Balkan commentator, Edith Durham, described the Black Hand as a mafia-type society, Masonic in secret self-promotion, infiltrating the Serbian military, civil service, police and government. It produced its own newspaper, Pijemont, which preached intolerance to Austria-Hungary and ‘violent chauvinism’. It became the most dangerous of political organisms, a government within the government, responsible to none. Crimes were committed for which no-one took responsibility. The government denied any knowledge of it, yet King Petar was literally placed on the throne by these men. Efforts by responsible politicians to tackle the subversion of good government by the Black Hand, came to nothing. [8] Hartwig’s friendship and respect for Apis may be measured by his description of his group as ‘idealistic and patriotic’ [9] and there is no doubt that it suited Hartwig’s purpose to approve Apis’s promotion to Chief of Intelligence in the summer of 1913.

It is important that we clearly identify every link in the chain of intrigue that surrounded the fateful assassination in Sarajevo in June 1914. Apis was deliberately given responsibility for an intelligence organisation financed from Russia. His life’s purpose was the establishment of a Greater Serbia. He was first, foremost and always a Serb. He worked in collusion with the Russian military attaché, Artamanov, and secured a promise from him that Russia would protect Serbia should Austria attack them in the wake of his actions. [10] In other words, Russia was prepared to give Serbia a blank-cheque guarantee that whatever happened, she would stand by her. For Apis, what was required was a demonstration of Serbian self-determination that would force the issue once and for all and bring about permanent change.

The Austrian government presented the opportunity in March 1914 when they announced that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg dual-monarchy, would visit Sarajevo in June.  Although they had reliable information that Serbian agitators ‘in conjunction with influential Russian circles’, wished to strike a decisive blow against the Austrian Monarchy, [11] they chose to ignore it. The Secret Elite had four crucial months in which to spin their web of intrigue and catch their ultimate prize.

[1] Editorial, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol.28 (1928), issue 4, p.619.
[2] Harry Elmer Barnes, ‘Germany Not Responsible for Austria’s Actions’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol.28 (1928), issue 4, p.621.
[3] The Times, Tuesday 30 June 1914, p.8.
[4] Editorial, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol.28 (1928), issue 4, p.619.
[5] Sidney B. Fay, Origins of the World War, vol.I, p.439.
[6] Ibid., p.27.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Edith Durham, Sarajevo Crime, pp.197–201.
[9] David MacKenzie, Apis, The Congenial Conspirator, p.275.
[10] Harry Elmer Barnes, In Quest of Truth and Justice, p.43.
[11] Friedrich von Wiesner, ‘Austria’s Life and Death Struggle Against Irredentism’, New York Times Current History of the European War, vol.28 (1928), issue 4, p.63.